Industry chiefs divided over 'poorly handled' ASADA probe

An explosive, yet ultimately unfulfilled, bid to expose doping and corruption in Australian sport has brought mixed responses from industry chiefs 12 months after the probe became a highly publicised national scandal.

While Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates said it could still take years to resolve such a complex investigation, other interested parties have lamented ham-fisted handling of highly sensitive subject matter.

Watershed moment: Aurora Andruska, then ASADA CEO, takes part in the joint press conference announcing the investigation into organised crime and drugs in sport at Parliament House in February 2013. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

The government-funded Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority has been under unprecedented scrutiny since the Australian Crime Commission released findings – on February 7 last year – from its report into organised crime and drugs in sport.

While the ACC, which has extensive coercive powers, published evidence of widespread sport-related sins, ASADA has for the past 12 months effectively sought to join the dots in order to sanction.

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The AFL’s Essendon Football Club and the NRL’s Cronulla Sharks have already been heavily fined for running sport science programs that were deemed wrong – if not illegal. ASADA, meanwhile, is yet to issue an infraction notice to a player or official from either club after conducting forensic examinations of both cases throughout last year.

‘‘I’m not surprised that an investigation of this nature is not concluded,” Coates, the veteran AOC head and vice-president of both the International Olympic Committee and International Court of Arbitration for Sport, told Fairfax Media.

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“It is important for all concerned – players, support staff, the clubs, NRL, AFL, WADA [World Anti-Doping Agency] and any others – that ASADA is thorough and follows due process.

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“If that takes years, and whatever the outcome, then so be it. If it extends to Olympic sports, and whatever the outcome, then so be it. We are all equally bound by the WADA Code which has been adopted by sport and governments to protect clean athletes.’’

The Victorian Institute of Sport’s CEO, Anne Marie Harrison, candidly reflected on events last year that were “poorly handled and led to more questions than answers being able to be provided”.

“In launching the report it appeared insufficient consideration had been given to the resources required to investigate the findings and complete the investigations, along with the complexities of the responsibilities of the various agencies and their ability to share information,” Harrison told Fairfax.

The VIS boss said that “never again should there be such a public announcement of an issue where the process and outcomes cannot be transparently reported soon after”.

Richard Ings, the predecessor of current ASADA CEO Aurora Andruska, expressed a similar view to Harrison at the 12-month mark of the investigation. Ings said Australia’s anti-doping body, which is federally funded and so ultimately reports to the government of the day, had suffered by not making its position in the matter clearer 12 months ago.

Harrison said ASADA’s investigations had returned less than she expected in a year: “This has reflected very poorly on everyone and has had an impact on the image of sport.” Like Coates, she also referenced the distinction between Olympic sports bodies and the nation’s professional codes such as the AFL and NRL.

The observation has been made consistently – even if privately – in Olympic sports that those in professional codes have appeared unreasonably impatient over the past year for ASADA to announce an outcome. The feeling is that Olympic sports are far more understanding of protracted and open-ended doping investigations. While not addressing that issue directly, Harrison noted: “There seems to be an inconsistency in the process and outcomes for athletes outside of the professional codes and those within.”

It remains a contentious point that the AFL managed to negotiate a joint investigation into Essendon with ASADA – a fact that threatened to become part of a legal challenge by coach James Hird.

Fairfax Media asked ASADA last week to respond to general questions about the past 12 months. After saying it required more time to respond, however, ASADA had not replied to a further inquiry at the time of publication.

Director of the government-funded Australian Institute of Sport, Matt Favier, highlighted how the ACC report led the AIS to publish updated sports-science and sports-medicine principles. The new 11-page guide was released last May, adopted by institutes such as the VIS, and sets out “worlds best” practice according to Favier.

The AIS also hosted an inaugural summit on medications and supplements last year, and published new governance principles designed to help sporting organisations lift standards.

The AFL responded by calling an immediate audit of all its clubs, along with myriad other measures it chronicled for Fairfax this week. In recent days the league has also announced that a former Victorian detective will head an AFL integrity unit that now comprises 14 staff.

David Grace, a Queen’s counsel who became boss of Athletics Australia last November, said AA had taken the ACC’s findings on supplements “very seriously”. He also noted “the sport of athletics has not encountered the type of gambling and corruption that has occurred in other sports”.

Engaged to represent Essendon players last year, Grace said it was too early to judge whether ASADA’s investigations had brought more or less than he expected in 12 months.

“I think that any reports of this nature are a wake-up call to all sports,” he said. “Australian sport is better off as a result.”